Which creative elements seem to work the best in emerging media? Which don't seem as effective?

Emerging media has forever changed the communications dominion enjoyed by print and broadcast media. This shift has happened so rapidly that many integrated marketing communications (IMC) professionals continue to deliver products from a media world that no longer exists. Today every reader is a publisher and every click a vote in the marketplace of ideas, goods, and services. It is a data-rich world where every click and byte of each information transaction can be tracked. It's clearly time to explore new creative options!

Presenting the final creative keynote presentation for Breakthrough iMedia Summit 2007 Anne Benvenuto, EVP of strategic services for R/GA, used the mythological archetype Hydra -- a serpent figure with many heads -- to explain how agencies need to change their internal processes to successfully adapt to the demands of the new media market.

‘"The Hydra has new needs," Benvenuto said, using the metaphor to infer that today's media leaders need to inspire their teams to new heights to get the best outcome from emerging platforms and consumer-relevant content.
"Traditional media teams are not used to working with interactivity or with the people who bring those ideas to the table," Benvenuto said, attributing this divide to the fact that old media is rooted in a linear narrative, the basic concept behind TV. But it takes innovation and inspiration to stretch media concepts far enough to meet the behavioral and experiential demands of today's consumer.
Faced with consumers who are avidly co-creating and expecting high levels of creative outreach to win their loyalty -- or interest -- what are marketers doing to capture the online audience? …. One of the solutions, Benvenuto said, is to embrace complexity, and that means navigating through the broad array of deliverables in today's media world:’

So, as new media comes to us very fast, furious and with great complexity, which creative elements seem to work the best and the least? Thorough attention to layout, graphics, color and other creative aspects must be considered in order to be user-friendly and inviting. Too many links, photos or graphics may distract or even deter visitors, so the correct balance is vitally important. First impressions are key, and remember, you never get the opportunity to make first impressions twice!